


Hunting Season

by Mint413



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Doomed Timelines, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 05:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5654671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mint413/pseuds/Mint413
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m so glad you decided to join us, Rose,” Jade says. “This wouldn’t be the same without you.” She smiles, baring all her teeth.<br/><br/>(How a timeline diverged, and what happened at the end of it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hunting Season

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Ladypalooza 2015 for the prompt “Some interaction between grimdark Rose and Grimbark Jade! Bonus points for a mind-controlled Jane, but not required.” It sort of ran away with me.

With admirable timing, Jade has just handed Rose’s wands back to her when the Dersite palace rumbles bone-deep, and there is the noise, on the far side of the building, of something collapsing. Jade exchanges a glance with Jane, and together, the three of them take several generous steps back.  
  
In the language of the horrorterrors, Rose says, “I assume this isn’t supposed to be happening?”  
  
“No,” Jade says grimly, “it isn’t. Jane, go and see what’s going on.”  
  
Jane pushes off the ground and flies toward the source of the commotion. She gets no more than halfway to her destination before a pulse of white light (almost the sort Rose remembers wielding, but she loses track of that thought) bursts the palace open like a rotten tomato. Over the screaming noise of rubble flying through the air, she hears Jade swear, and Derse flickers with green light.  
  
Rose takes a moment to adjust. They stand now on a planet that looks vaguely familiar, although she can’t tell if the memory belongs to Rose or the horrorterrors. The Land of Frost and Frogs, she thinks: Jade’s old land—but the frost has melted. Before her feet spreads a lake of fire she traces back to the volcano that must have recently erupted. She sees a few other tiny figures on the far side of the lava, but as Jane is moving toward them, she doubts that problem will need her attention.  
  
Above her, Jade has flown up to meet the source of that white light—the power of Hope, she thinks—where it hovers above the lava. If she squints, she can see a silhouette at the center of the bubble of light. It does not look particularly threatening; honestly, the really irritating part is that it keeps shouting absurdly antiquated phrases such as “Land sakes alive!” As she watches, the figure yells “Tallyho!” but with a growl Jade braces her hands against some invisible wall and counters with the fire of the Green Sun. It will be quiet soon.  
  
She can admit to some curiosity about the source of the problem, but she knows that Jane and Jade will have the situation under control within moments, so she’s turning away when she hears Jade shout, “Rose? A little help up here?”  
  
When she glances up, the sky is full of green fire like a moon hanging low overhead. It appears that Jade does _not_ have the situation under control, then. Rose cloaks herself in black light and flies straight into the inferno to join her.  
  
The roar of the Green Sun surrounds her (for the second time in her life—she loses that train of thought immediately), but shielded by the cold of the Furthest Ring, she is unfazed. At her side, Jade glances at her only briefly. “About time. Come on, push!”  
  
Jade throws out her hands. Rose follows suit, threading a jet of darkness black as coal up through the fire. She makes contact, feels the blazing light above them resist, clenches her teeth and wraps it in the power of the Furthest Ring. “Tallyho,” she snarls in the horrortongues, and Jade brings their prey down, crashing it into the lake of fire below.  
  
With that nuisance out of the way, it is quiet enough for her to hear shouting across the lake. She doesn’t bother to glance over; instead she looks at Jade, who offers her a high five. Rose summons a tentacle in order to return it.  
  
“I’m so glad you decided to join us, Rose,” Jade says. “This wouldn’t be the same without you.” She smiles, baring all her teeth.  
  
Rose smiles back and ignores the tiny part of her that wonders how she got here.  


* * *

  
  
But of course, she already knows.  


* * *

  
  
_Hours in the past (but not many)…_  
  
Even by Rose’s standards, which she has significantly altered over the past three years, today is an unusual day. Setting aside the fact that they are riding a meteor accompanied by several aliens, they are currently approaching the new session at a pace near the speed of light, with no way to stop the meteor before it punches into the new session’s Skaia and kills all of them.  
  
Perhaps she should be alarmed at this latest dilemma, but after so long on the meteor, it feels like a breath of fresh air. Throughout the last three years, there have only been a few paths she could choose. Almost every decision she made, no matter how dissimilar they appeared, seemed to lead into one of three main directions, the differences between them flickering and indistinct, and she selected based on the day, her whims, and for a while, her relative sobriety—and no matter what she chose, the Furthest Ring always called to her in her dreams.  
  
Today, the world has opened up before her. As she walks along the flat dark familiar concrete, her robes no longer seem like such an unusual splash of color, because the Light fills her vision. Golden paths lead off in all directions, and she has to force herself not to laugh because she knows none of the others will understand. She can’t see where any of these pathways will end, but for the first time in three years, she knows where they start.  
  
One thing, however, has not changed. It appears that for Dave and Karkat, bickering is a universal constant.  
  
At the moment, Dave and Karkat are walking behind her, discussing the issue of how to survive their entry into the new session. Dave has just proposed that those present who have ascended to the god tiers could fly those who have not off the meteor before impact. Karkat has just rejected this with some vehemence, as Karkat does everything. If nothing else, it is a mildly amusing distraction.  
  
“I know you can’t fly, dude,” Dave is saying. “Obviously I would just carry you out or something.”  
  
“I’d rather fucking die,” snaps Karkat.  
  
The Light tells Rose which direction Karkat’s facetious protestation is about to take them in. It is not a direction she likes.  
  
Glancing over her shoulder, she says, “I would not rule out the possibility entirely, Karkat.” Karkat rolls his eyes; Dave lifts an eyebrow. Behind them, Terezi grins with a mouth full of knives, which, knowing Terezi, could mean either that she understands Rose’s motivations for interjecting, or that she enjoys the color of Rose’s robes. Before any of them can speak, she soldiers on. “Despite the dramatic threats you make, you seem remarkably attached to your life, and Dave’s suggestion may be your best chance.”  
  
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” says Karkat. He is saying it because he knows she is right, and she relaxes. This, at least, is a more favorable path.  
  
Then she hears it for the first time.  
  
Her first thought is of Gamzee, and a shiver tenses up her shoulders. She is not fond of the clown. The pitch was wrong, though, too deep and steady. She replays it in her mind, but it isn’t till Dave says, “Dude, did you just bark?” that she matches it to a sound that was familiar back on Earth, what feels like an age ago.  
  
“What?” says Karkat. “No, I didn’t bark.”  
  
Dread creeps up Rose’s spine. If Karkat _had_ barked, the situation would be completely ridiculous, and also vastly preferable. As things stand, the question remains: What on this meteor could be barking? She pictures light flashing off a black sword as it emerges from Terezi’s chest, Kanaya’s eyes going wide as her head flies from her neck, her brother lying pale and still in a pool of blood a shade darker than the Time god-tier outfit, passed on far, far out of her reach. The product of an overactive imagination, or a prophecy?  
  
Beside her, Kanaya hisses quietly, low and angry through her teeth. In the back of the group, she hears Terezi begin to growl. Of them all, only the Mayor appears unaffected, though Dave and Karkat are still accusing one another of having barked. There’s no time to warn them.  
  
In a flash of green lightning, their enemy appears. It is much worse than Rose expected.  
  
“Hey, guys,” says the monster. She wears the garb of a Witch, with a Space symbol emblazoned over her chest: a player, but a player transcendent in her fury and splendid with power Rose cannot hope to match. Her skin, as dark gray as the stone of the meteor around them, is wreathed in brilliant green flame that does not hurt her, and behind wire-rimmed glasses, her eyes burn white. She is at once a god and a demon: Rose thinks of the Erinyes, the avenging Furies of an old mythology, who served the Lord of the Dead. And she is so _Jade_ it hurts, from the messy tangle of hair that resembles the photos Jade used to send her over the Internet with an apology for her grandfather’s lack of skill with the camera, to the high cheerful voice Rose used to hear through her laptop’s speakers, now underlaid with an animal’s growl.  
  
With Skaia at her back, she descends. When she reaches the ground, the entire meteor shudders. Somewhere far away, Rose hears the groan of metal.  
  
“Long time, no see,” says Jade, reaching out with clawed fingers to grasp the Space around them.  
  
In the next few seconds, the pathways available to Rose dwindle again.  
  
There is a universe in which she stands still and lets Jade take them (and what then? what will Jade do to her friends?).  
  
There is a universe in which she draws her wands and lunges forward (and she is gone before she can make impact, and Jade _laughs_ ).  
  
And there is a universe in which—  
  
She pulls her wands from the pocket in her god-tier skirt and fires a jet of pure Light at Kanaya.  
  
Kanaya goes flying back, hits the wall, head snaps forward, lands. Rose doesn’t let herself wince. Dave yells “What the _fuck_ —” He’s running toward her, he is going to tackle her. She has made an enemy of her brother. She sidesteps neatly and lets him stumble to a halt, confused. Terezi has unsheathed her sword. Karkat is yelling something she tunes out. It doesn’t matter, can’t matter now because she has accomplished her objective: Jade has frozen before she can carry out her plan, whatever it may be. She has her head on one side. There is something predatory in her expression.  
  
Rose whips all the way around and hits Jade with two sucker-punch blasts from her wands, _one-two_ , knocks her back. Sprints toward her while she still can, pressing her advantage, she won’t have long—she raises her wands again and Jade rolls onto her feet faster than should have been possible and holds out a hand.  
  
Her first thought is that time has stopped. Her second thought is, that’s not quite right.  
  
Jade walks toward her, still holding up her hand. Her body ripples with the power of the Green Sun. Rose tries to move, but Space won’t let her.  
  
Behind her, she hears Dave’s hoarse shout of “ _No_!”  
  
“I see that you’ve become much more than a bookworm while we were apart.” Jade is close enough now that Rose can distinguish each of her teeth. Her fangs, now, long and sharp and white. Perhaps she should have compared Jade to Hades’ guard dog instead. “That could be interesting. I’m taking you with me. Sorry, everyone,” she adds, over Rose’s shoulder. “I hope you’re not too jealous.”  
  
Jade spins her around to look at them. Dave, knuckles white on the hilt of his ridiculous broken useless sword, teeth gritted. She regrets that even now, potentially the last time she will ever see him, he is still wearing his sunglasses. Karkat is holding his sickles; where the light of the Green Sun hits them, it splinters off into little crescents, so the blades appear to glow. Terezi’s teeth are bared, sighted yellow eyes fixed on Rose. She holds her sword out as a warning, but of all of them, only she seems to realize there is no use in attacking now.  
  
The Mayor has gone to kneel by Kanaya where she lies motionless by the wall.  
  
“You’re not taking my sister,” says Dave, stupid heroic Dave.  
  
“Oh, but I am,” says Jade. “And _you_ aren’t going to interfere. It was nice catching up!”  
  
In a flicker of green lightning like that which Jade appeared in, Rose’s friends disappear, and she is alone with Jade on the meteor. Her blood runs hot with fury, but Jade still won’t let her move.  
  
“Hold tight, now,” murmurs her oldest friend, and with one more flash of light, the meteor is gone.  


* * *

  
  
Beneath them appears a familiar city, all purple glass spread out to the black horizon. The glossy surface of a spire not far beneath their feet flashes the green gleam of their arrival back to them.  
  
After the Scratch, Rose never expected to see Derse again. This new session appears to have made some changes, the most notable of which is the scarlet warship that blocks the distant light of Skaia, casting the palace in shadow. The white lettering on the side spells out _BATTLESHIP CONDESCENSION._ She’s heard enough from Karkat and Kanaya that she shivers when she sees it, although that could just be the cold. Skaia’s light and warmth are only a pinprick in the dark sky.  
  
The sibilant susurrus of the Furthest Ring, far away in the darkness, doesn’t help. What’s worse is that, from here, they should be just beyond the range of mortal hearing, and she’s not sure that she can hear them because she is not technically mortal, or because they’re speaking directly to her.  
  
When Jade hooks an arm around her neck, the invisible force releases its hold on her body, but Rose doesn’t take the bait. She can see the pathways that lead from this moment to the next, and most of them end with Jade inserting an inch-thick slice of air between her hipbones and her legs. Since she’s rather fond of her legs, she holds still and submits herself to be towed down to the ground.  
  
Jade lands in front of the palace, in the shadow of the great warship, with a _thump_ Rose feels in her bones, and someone comes out to meet them.  
  
To her surprise, the girl is human, in the loosest sense of the word. She wears what resembles a god-tier outfit, but it’s not a color Rose has ever seen before, bright red to match the circlet at her brow and the _Battleship Condescension_ overhead. She is beautiful like a wax doll is beautiful, with paste-white flesh that might melt off her bones in the heat of the sun.  
  
“Hello, Jane,” says Jade. “We have a new prisoner.”  
  
Jane does not so much hold still as she lacks movement. If she were trying to restrain herself, Rose would have noticed the tension of her body, the rise and fall of her chest. As it is, Rose might have mistaken her for a statue had she not just seen her move, and judging by the red trident Jane holds in one hand, the mistake could have proved lethal.  
  
“She was very troublesome when I arrived to separate her little friends, but I think the Condesce would be pleased to have a fully realized Seer of Light,” Jade says. Rose is careful not to stiffen in Jade’s grip; she will never serve their mistress, but she does not say so aloud. “Would you take her to a cell, please?”  
  
“Of course,” says Jane, moves forward, and seizes both of Rose’s hands, pinching her wrists together behind her back and causing her shoulders to complain vehemently. Jane squeezes hard enough to make Rose’s hands go numb, and her wands slip out of her fingers and clatter on the ground. Their loss sends a chill racing down her spine, but she says nothing.  
  
When Jade lets go of her neck so roughly she almost pitches back into Jane, she does protest, “This is no way to treat a lady.” She catches her breath, spares a moment to steady herself. “My maidenly sensibilities are offended.”  
  
Jade growls, teeth glinting white. “Shut up.”  
  
The old Jade might have laughed, made some joke about being Rose’s knight in shining armor, and kissed her hand for dramatic effect. Now, Jade’s eyes shine white and angry, and her body is already turning away. There is no recognition in her face.  
  
Something tightens uncomfortably in Rose’s chest, and she has to force herself not to dwell on it. “If I’m your Seer of Light,” she says, “then what are your plans for my friends? Surely you must have some use for them.”  
  
“Eventually,” Jade says. “In the meantime, they are being kept out of the way on one of this session’s planets. The player didn’t need it anymore.”  
  
Rose frowns. “By which you mean they had completed their quest,” she says, more to buy time than because she wants the answer. She isn’t even sure what she’s buying time for.  
  
Jade gives her the scalpel-edge of a smile. “Not exactly.”  
  
Jane shoves her from behind to get her moving, and Rose allows herself to be guided inside, leaving both Jade and her wands behind.  
  
As Jane marches her through the Dersite palace, she considers her options. Jane’s grip on her wrists is tight enough to ache, but if Rose kicked her in the knee, she might loosen it. When she consults the Light, however, she finds that each of the paths where she breaks free now end immediately with a fork through the chest. Jane crooks her wrist to throw exactly the same in all of them.  
  
Dying now won’t help her friends, so although she’s disappointed that she can do nothing but obey, she suffers herself to be pushed along several more hallways until they come to a long spiraling flight of stairs. Here, the probabilities converge—however slight, she has a chance. She waits until they’re perhaps halfway up the stairs before kicking out behind her.  
  
Jane clutches onto one of her wrists as she topples backward. They fall much too fast to catch themselves with god-tier powers and hit the stairs instead. Jane takes most of the impact, but the steps keep skidding by very close to Rose’s face. They move at a slant that’s at odds with the spiral curve of the staircase, heading for the edge. Rose catches her foot on something, pushes off messily, but Jane’s grip tightens painfully on her hand and her weight drags them spinning downward. Gritting her teeth, she uses her left hand, the one she has free, to go for the glasses, the eyes—  
  
Jane seizes her, dives upward, and slams her head against the staircase.  


* * *

  
  
When she wakes, her head is pounding so badly that for a moment she wishes she had died instead. God-tier revival would have hurt less. She will have to find some method of checking for concussions in the cell Jane is pushing her into. Before she can fully process what’s happening, Jane lets go, and she barely catches herself on the wall in time. Behind her, the door clicks shut, and the key rattles in the lock.  
  
Rose takes this opportunity to survey her new cell, noting quickly the one barred window on the wall that overlooks the dark city, and the second window, much smaller, at the top of the door. If the transportalizer in the corner is anything to go by, it appears that she will not be able to execute a dramatic escape when her jailers come by to feed her. This is perhaps just as well, as such a plot could only succeed in John’s favorite cinema—John, who Jade must have imprisoned or killed when she entered into the service of the Condesce.  
  
Aside from these features, the room is empty of furnishings.  
  
Heavy footsteps outside alert her to the fact that Jane is leaving. Returning to the door, she leans up on tiptoe to peer through the bars near the top. To the retreating, red-clad back, she says, “Please, wait. We haven’t had the trite scene where I rattle the bars of my cell and say you’re making a mistake yet.”  
  
Jane continues to walk ponderously away. She gives no sign of having heard.  
  
“Nor have you told me what’s going on,” says Rose. “That’s crucial. A girl needs something to keep her occupied while imprisoned by a near-immortal aquatic alien. Are you Jade’s ectobiological grandmother?” She edges to her right to keep Jane in her line of vision for another moment. “Why did you join the Condesce?”  
  
Jane passes out of sight. The footsteps pause. There is the sound of a door opening, and then closing again. The latch clicks behind her.  
  
Rose leans against the door and touches the lump forming at the top of her head. It’s painful to the touch, but she can still see straight, so she tentatively concludes that she isn’t concussed.  
  
At least she knows her friends are useful to the Condesce in some way. Unless Karkat led her astray in his assessment of the Condesce’s intelligence, she won’t let them die before she has what she wants. If Rose can free herself, she might be able to damage whatever the Condesce has planned, or even the Empress herself. The question, of course, is how to escape.  
  
Then a voice from outside her cell calls, “Hello?”  
  
Rose straightens up and looks out through the window at the top of the door, but there’s no one there.  
  
“Hello?” says the voice again. On reflection, it sounds as though it’s coming from further down the cell block. “Damn! I _know_ there was someone there. C’mon, I’m not gonna hurt you. Like I could, being all locked up-like.”  
  
The voice sounds like it belongs to a girl of about her own age. She has never heard it before, but there is something familiar about the turns of phrase, the flippant tone, that prickles at the back of her neck.  
  
“Hello,” she calls. “I’m here. The metaphorical device you’re using is, in fact, functional, et cetera, et cetera. Whose acquaintance do I have the pleasure of making?”  
  
“Ooh, _smooth_.” Her fellow prisoner giggles. “I’m Roxy Lalonde. Who are you?”  
  
Rose feels as though her bones have turned to ice.  
  
“Rose Lalonde,” she says, somehow managing to keep her voice level. “It’s an honor.”  
  
There is a long silence.  
  
“Rose Lalonde?” says the voice—says Roxy. “Rose fuckin’ Lalonde?”  
  
“At your service.”  
  
Roxy chokes with laughter. “Oh my god, you talk _just_ like Dirk. I can’t believe this.”  
  
Rose turns and presses her back against the door, but keeps her mouth turned toward the bars so Roxy can hear her. She finds herself chuckling as well, more out of shock than anything else. “Assuming that you’re referring to Dave’s brother, then technically, he _is_ my father.”  
  
“That’s so bizarre,” says Roxy in tones of wonder. “What’d they put you in here for?”  
  
“Homicide, arson, and jaywalking,” she says, just to hear the girl who might have been her mother sputter with laughter again. The fact that she can make that joke only confirms that she has spent too much time with Dave. “Actually, I caused Jade too much trouble. Now she seems to be under the impression that I’ll use my Seer powers for her if she kidnaps me and throws me in a cell. Or should that be ‘dognaps’? She _has_ changed since I last saw her.”  
  
“Oh, same here,” says Roxy. “Sort of. I’m a Rogue of Void, so apparently I can make them something they want? They’re just keeping me locked up while I do it. These people seriously need to learn how to interact with not-evil people.”  
  
She smirks. “Minus three to Charisma rolls.”  
  
This time Roxy gives a satisfied “ _Ha_!” that loosens something in her chest which has been caught there a very long time. “So do you know how to get us out of here?”  
  
She gives herself a firm mental shake. “No. There are no controls for the transportalizer on this side, and they’d be fools to leave keys in here. Normally I’d suggest breaking out by destroying the walls around us in a blaze of righteous flame. Unfortunately, Jane took my wands, and I can’t channel the Light as a weapon without them.”  
  
A pause.  
  
“Can’t you?” asks the voice from farther down the cell block.  
  
Rose frowns. “An old mentor of mine did once imply that the power was in my black little heart all along,” she says. “He was lying, of course. The power was in the vast black vascular pumps of the gods of the Furthest Ring.”  
  
“Well, why don’t you try this…Light thing?” says Roxy. “I mean, what’ve you got to lose, right?”  
  
Rose hesitates. After grimdark, she stopped blindly trusting anything Scratch had told her, but Roxy poses a good point. She’s never really tried.  
  
“That’s a fair way to look at it,” she says. “Wish me luck.”  
  
“Luck!” says Roxy.  
  
Rose calls on the Light the way she’s used to doing when she has her wands in hand, and destroys the walls around her in a blaze of righteous flame.  


* * *

  
  
It’s not that easy, of course. Even she can only do so much. But she manages a passable five explosions before Jade appears in another flash of green light.  
  
“What are you doing!” Jade says, freezing her to prevent any more wanton destruction. “I was busy and Jane came and told me my powers were needed here. She took away your strifekind! I don’t understand how you’re doing this.”  
  
The air slams into her and knocks her against the wall with an impact that makes her head throb anew. She braces her hands against the wall for balance and catches her breath. “I have no obligation to tell you.”  
  
Jade sneers. “Yes, you do. You’re my prisoner! And prisoners tell me things, or face the consequences.”  
  
Rose raises an eyebrow. It’s a good line, brave and threatening, and just vague enough to chill the faint of heart. But in this moment, despite her feral snarl and the green fire crawling over her body in waves, Jade seems no more dangerous than the coffee Rose grew used to on the meteor: nasty enough to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth, but certainly not life-threatening. She’s just a girl playing at being a monster, and that Rose can defeat, if only because she understands it so well.  
  
“Then it seems we are at an impasse,” she says, straightening up.  
  
Jade lifts her lip, revealing very sharp teeth. “Do you want me to get Her Imperious Condescension involved? I don’t want to do that, Rose, but I will.” She takes a step closer. “You know I will.”  
  
“Yes,” says Rose, and means it. “What I’m not sure is _why._ You aren’t hers to keep on a leash.”  
  
Jade growls low in her throat. “Don’t start with the doggy jokes. Do you know how many of those I get already? John was such a _pain_ for those three years on the boat.”  
  
Something tightens at the base of Rose’s throat. Oddly, swallowing does nothing to relax it. “And now I suppose he’s dead.”  
  
“What?” Jade’s brow furrows. “No, he got away. I was looking for him when— _grrr!_ I’m not supposed to be telling you this. Her Imperious Condescension will be mad.”  
  
Rose cannot permit herself even a moment for relief, but her shoulders relax before she can help it. “Her Imperious Condescension will undoubtedly _also_ be mad if I destroy her palace.” She cocks a brow. “If you’ve been out of touch with society long enough to forget the phrase, this is called ‘being caught between a rock and an angry troll.’”  
  
A door closes behind Jade’s face.  
  
“No, Rose, I _know_ the expression,” she says. “But see, I can just do _this.”_  
  
She pulses with an acid-green light so powerful Rose has to turn and shade her eyes, and the pieces of the broken walls flicker and flash back into place all at once.  
  
“So we can keep doing this as long as you like,” Jade says, “but you’re going to lose.”  
  
Jade no longer seems so easy to defeat. Rose swallows. She does not like being wrong.  
  
She sets her jaw and maintains eye contact until Jade flashes out of her cell, but once she is gone, she leans back against the wall and runs her hands through her hair. She does not use any more righteous flame. She feels mortal like she hasn’t for three years, and very tired.  
  
“Looks like I wished you the wrong kind of luck,” calls Roxy’s voice, after a minute. “Sorry. I’ll wish you better next time.”  
  
Rose sighs, moving to the door to lean her forehead against the bars. The top of her skull still aches, but she tries to ignore the pain. “Don’t worry about it.”  
  
Roxy is quiet for a moment. “I should work on practicing the thing they want me to do,” she says, “so it doesn’t look like I’ve been sitting on my butt chilling with my hella awesome mom who is also my daughter.”  
  
Against Rose’s will, the corners of her mouth quirk up. “A reasonable plan. Out of curiosity, what do they want you to do?”  
  
A sigh echoes down the corridor. “Well—it’s complicated. Basically, being a Rogue of Void means you can steal nothingness from things and thus create them? Which is great, I guess, but they want me to create this thing called the Matriorb, which is—”  
  
Rose feels as though her mind has just been jump-started. “The egg which could hatch a new Mother Grub and thus spawn an entire new generation of trolls, yes.” Her heart is fluttering at the base of her throat. “I have a friend who told me it was gone forever.”  
  
Roxy goes silent just long enough for Rose to regret having interrupted her. It would have made little difference to allow Roxy to finish the sentence, even if she did already know what she would say. Then, “Yeah, well, I guess your friend was misinformed. I kind of wish they were right, though, because when I do this I’m just going to be selling an entire race into slavery.”  
  
Rose bites her lip. She can’t argue with that. “Think positive. We’ll get out of here.”  
  
“Yeah.” Roxy is silent for a moment. “Wish me luck.”  
  
“Good luck,” she says.  
  
She hears quiet footsteps in Roxy’s cell, and relaxes against the door. Her paradox mother-daughter will probably be busy for at least several minutes with her next attempt at creating the Matriorb. If they’re lucky, Jade and Jane will also be busy with whatever nefarious plot they have for Rose’s friends. That should give her time to formulate a plan.  


* * *

  
  
But she has still conceived of no way past Jade when, only a few minutes later, Roxy’s voice reverberates down the corridor, shivery with nervous excitement. “Holy shit. I think this might be the Matriorb.”  
  
Rose turns her head toward the window. “What does it look like?”  
  
“Little round gray ball, bunch of troll horns sticking out of—”  
  
“That’s it.” Rose’s heart thrums too fast for comfort. “Unfortunately, it also means we’re out of time. Someone noticed immediately when I tried to break out. That means they keep a relatively close eye on us. They’ll send someone along to collect it shortly.”  
  
“Damn. I don’t know what to do with it.” There is the sound of clothes rustling on the other end of the hall. “I could throw it out the window? If I suplexed it hard enough, it might break open.”  
  
Rose hesitates. She knows it’s a sensible plan. Maybe even the right choice, if there is such a thing.  
  
“No,” she says. “They’d know what you’d done. Your safety is important.”  
  
“D’awwww,” coos Roxy. “That’s so sweet of you!”  
  
“I try.”  
  
Roxy hums. “You know, Rose? It’s been…really nice to meet you.”  
  
Rose is already prepared to stifle her emotions by the time she realizes she’s not even sure what she’s feeling. “It’s mutual.”  
  
The door at the end of the hall slams open. Rose jumps back from her door just before a key turns in the lock. When the door opens, what little of Jade’s face she can see beneath the green fire is split in a vicious grin. She seizes Rose’s arm and drags her down the corridor, where Jane is unlocking another door.  
  
The lock clicks. The door creaks open. Jade snaps, “Move.”  
  
Rose is hardly delighted to present her back to Jade and Jane, but she steps through.  
  
She has heard Roxy Lalonde’s voice echoing down the tiled halls of their prison, but she has never met her. That doesn’t matter, because Roxy is immediately familiar. She has known her for her entire life.  
  
The girl sitting against the wall in a pile of highly nondescript green cubes is clad all in dark blue, the Void symbol on her chest indicating that she has ascended to the god tiers. She is too small and slim to be the familiar figure Rose believed to be terrorizing her throughout her childhood, but the blonde hair is the same down to the precise curl beneath her ears. It’s the eyes, however, that make Rose feel like she’s been doused in ice water. She has never known anyone with eyes that unnatural shade of pink except—  
  
“Mom,” she breathes, stepping forward, at the same time Roxy leans forward and says, “Mom?”  
  
They lock eyes, then, breathless, begin to laugh.  
  
“Okay, not that this family reunion isn’t touching,” says Jade’s voice. “Because it is! But I’m going to have to cut it short.”  
  
Startled, Rose turns, and then winces at having telegraphed her surprise. Jade, however, does not appear to notice. In the shadowy cell, she is the brightest thing Rose can see, all poison green and white fire. She is pacing forward toward Roxy, and the smile twisting her face could be described as one of hunger, or of glee. “Roxy, do you have the Matriorb?”  
  
Roxy appears just now to tear her eyes from Rose. It takes her a moment to focus on Jade instead. “Why, yes, I surely do,” she says with far more cheer than the situation warrants—though, to be fair, Rose feels as though her own heart is being borne up on a draught of fresh air. From its spot beside her thigh, Roxy produces what appears to be a gray sphere, decorated with the types of horns Rose has grown accustomed to seeing on Karkat, Kanaya, and Terezi’s heads. “One troll civilization, coming right up.”  
  
“Excellent,” says Jade. “Then we no longer need your services.”  
  
“What?” Roxy’s eyebrows knit. Rose’s chest goes very, very cold. “Are you saying I’m free to go?”  
  
“Yes,” says Jade, catches Rose by the hand, and drags her aside. Rose tries to move, but it’s already too late. The bright red fork slams neatly into Roxy’s chest. The thud comes when it hits the wall on the other side.  
  
Roxy’s mouth opens. She tries to speak, but blood dribbles out over her lower lip. Then her body falls slack, curling around the culling fork.  
  
Jane walks across the cell and wrenches the fork from Roxy’s chest. Rose has seen atrocities the human mind fails to comprehend, spoken with more tongues than she has in her mouth and felt the weight of the Furthest Ring on her psyche. Something in her gut twists unpleasantly at the sight of this one girl lying on the floor, chest laid open red red red for them to see. The stench of blood almost chokes her.  
  
Jade pushes her down. She stumbles, falls to her knees by the body. For a moment she is thirteen again, sitting cross-legged on the floor and watching her mother’s death in the palm of her hand. Roxy’s eyes are open. Ironic that this, after all, is the worst punishment the Condesce could have devised. At least if it had been Dave, she would have joined him before long. As it is, she has no idea how to avenge a mother for a second time.  
  
She reaches out for the threads of fate, but they are gone. There is no Light in the cell, nowhere left for her to run. The dead end lies right in front of her in a spreading pool of blood. At her back, the hounds are closing in.  
  
Well, if even the Light has abandoned her, then the dark will have to fucking do.  
  
Even after so long, the Furthest Ring is there when she closes her eyes. She stands before the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors with no fear, only the outrage that boils in her chest. The voices of the darkness say, _Rose Lalonde. We knew you would come back to us._  
  
_I want to make a deal_ , she says.  
  
When she rises, a curtain of black fire sweeps up around her. Saltwater floods her mouth, her nose, her eyes. The whispers of the dark gods echo as though the tiny cramped cell is a cathedral. She turns, and behind her she sees blood beading on the tines of the trident aimed at her chest, and a woman alight with the fire of the Green Sun, smirking as if Rose can do nothing to hurt her.  
  
Rose screams with a thousand voices and lunges—  
  
—lunges aside, twisting midflight to slam into the floor. Tendrils of starless night tangle around her like vines, she chokes on the brine in her nose and throat, there are footsteps like gunshots and Jade is leaning over her smiling. “Did you really think the horrorterrors would let you turn against Her Imperious Condescension?” she asks. Rose screams in agony—tries to fight free but there’s nothing tangible to fight free of, only the stabbing pain as her mind buckles under the weight of the gods. Jade leans down to look into her eyes—“She _is_ their daughter, after all.”  
  
Rose spits salt and copper onto the floor. A moment later, the horrorterrors find a weak spot, drive tentacles in, and pull. The noise she hears is akin to shattering glass.  


* * *

  
  
When she opens her eyes, she is lying on the floor of a jail cell. There is a corpse beside her. Her arms shake as she pushes herself up. Jade and Jane stand and watch.  
  
“Seer,” says Jade. The look on her face strikes Rose briefly as something that would have been wholly foreign three years ago; then she forgets again. “Will you serve beside us?”  
  
She speaks seventeen syllables in the horrortongues. Combined, they mean _yes._


End file.
